“In this way, if a note should turn out to be bad, you could not return it to its owner.”
“I never took a bad note in my life,” said Mr. Galloway, speaking impulsively. “There’s not a better judge of notes than myself in the kingdom; and Jenkins is as good as I am.”
Another silence. Mr. Butterby remained in the same attitude, his head and eyes bent. “Have you given me all the particulars?” he presently asked.
“I think so. All I remember.”
“Then allow me to go over them aloud,” returned the detective; “and, if I make any mistake or omission, have the goodness to correct me:—On Friday last, you took a twenty-pound note out of your cash drawer, not taking or knowing its number. This note you put within the folds of a letter, and placed both in an envelope, and fastened the envelope down, your two clerks, Channing and Yorke, being present. You then went out, leaving the letter upon one of the desks. As you left, Hamish Channing came in. Immediately following upon that, Yorke went out, leaving the brothers alone. Arthur departed to attend college, Hamish remaining in the office. Arthur Channing soon returned, finding there was no necessity for him to stay in the cathedral; upon which Hamish left. Arthur Channing remained alone for more than an hour, no one calling or entering the office during that period. You then returned yourself; found the letter in the same state, apparently, in which you had left it, and you sealed it, and sent Arthur Channing with it to the post-office. These are the brief facts, so far as you are cognizant of them, and as they have been related to you?”
“They are,” replied Mr. Galloway. “I should have mentioned that Arthur Channing carried the letter into my private room before he left the office for college.”
“Locking the door?”
“Oh dear, no! Closing the door, no doubt, but not locking it. It would have been unusual to do so.”
“Jenkins was away,” observed the detective in a tone of abstraction, which told he was soliloquizing, rather than addressing his companion. Mr. Galloway rather fired up at the remark, taking it in a different light from that in which it was spoken.
“Jenkins was at home at the time, confined to his bed; and, had he not been, I would answer for Jenkins’s honesty as I would for my own. Can you see any possible solution to the mystery?”